Thanks for everyone's feedback on the DASL charter. I included a new
version of it below. I look forward to any further comments.
Thanks,
-Saveen
----------
DAV Searching and Locating (DASL)
Last Modified: 01-06-97
Chair(s):
TBD
Applications Area Director(s):
Keith Moore, <moore@cs.utk.edu>
Harald Alvestrand <Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no>
Applications Area Advisor:
TBD
Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: www-webdav-dasl@w3.org
To Subscribe: www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.og put subscribe in
body
Archive: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webdav-dasl/
Description of Working Group
The goal of this working group is to provide searching
interoperability among the variety of underlying storage
systems whose data can be exposed by the WEBDAV extensions to
HTTP. The working group will define HTTP extensions that enable
the location of network resources based upon their property
values and text content.
The WEBDAV protocol defines a simple set of mechanisms to
manipulate and retrieve properties on resources. Interaction is
at the level of a single resource. WEBDAV provides no mechanism
to locate efficiently the set of resources matching user-
desired criteria on properties and content. The mechanisms
defined in WEBDAV provide only the most primitive support for
this operation, one that requires extensive processing and
network usage by the client. Furthermore, the WEBDAV mechanisms
do not take advantage of the advanced querying and caching
capabilities of many storage systems.
Scope
A generalized Search mechanism is a broad problem space. It
encompasses a variety of object models, typing schemes, and
media. By focusing on a subset of this space, the problem of
locating resources based on property values and text content,
the working group will leverage much of the existing work that
has been done on querying under simple property and media
models. The subset is one that involves typing in property
values, relative comparisons of property values (>, >=, <,
etc.), internationalized content, and simple text content
matching.
Items excluded from the immediate scope of the working group
include definitions of default property sets, server-to-server
communication protocols, and searching for non-text content
(images, video, audio, etc.).
Deliverables
The final output of this working group is expected to be two
documents:
(1) A requirements document, that describes the high-level
functional requirements for DASL, including rationale. This
will be an Informational document.
(2) A protocol specification describing the additions to WEBDAV
(new methods, headers, request bodies, and response bodies)
needed to implement the DASL requirements. This will be a
Standards Track document.
Goals and Milestones:
Done - Draft Working Group Charter. Establish mailing list,
archive, and homepage.
Feb 98 - Produce initial Requirements document. Submit as
Internet Draft.
Mar 98 - Produce DASL specification. Submit as Internet Draft.
Mar 98 - Meet in LA IETF and hold working group meeting to
develop the protocol specification and requirements document.
Aug 98 - Meet in Chicago IETF to further develop protocol
specification
Oct 98 - Create final version of DASL requirements document.
Submit as Informational RFC.
Mar 99 - Complete revisions to DASL. Submit as a Proposed
Standard RFC